America Is Out of Touch on China/Kai Chen 美对华政策的败笔/陈凯

Kai Chen on Freedom 陈凯论自由














America Is Out of Touch on China/Kai Chen 美对华政策的败笔/陈凯

America Is Out of Touch on China

- On American Failure to Address Its Moral Principles since the Cold War -

By Kai Chen February 10, 2009

I have monitored America’s China policy since I came to this country in 1981. I can’t help but to deplore, in witnessing the decline of American moral values, the increasing confusion and failure in American China policy-making. I have to say that the incremental corruption and neglect of the principle of individual freedom that America was founded upon let to today’s failure in American foreign policy-making. In today’s LA Times the article by Nina Hachigian “A to-do list for China” (article pasted below) advising Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s upcoming trip to China has clearly shown that America China policy is going toward a nihilistic cliff. A disaster is brewing on the horizon.

Both parties failed to address the fundamental principles upon which America is founded.

During the Cold War, both major political parties, Republicans and Democrats, had a consensus on what America is about – a beacon of freedom for mankind under the threat of tyranny. Since Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech that brought forth the collapse of despotism/communism around the world, no such moral clarity has been exhibited and articulated by American politicians, either from right or from the left. The recent presidential debate between Obama and McCain over domestic and foreign policies of America focused only on the material and economic issues. It was as if when the evil gets well fed and dressed, it will change its ways.

Both parties and their representatives have somehow duped themselves into a morally relative “group think”. We as human beings are no longer individuals in their eyes. Therefore morality is only a relative thing according to each individual’s group identity. An unprecedented tidal wave of moral nihilism has washed up the shore of America, in large part, due to the China phenomenon.

The gutless Republicans and morally confused Democrats are now both engaged in racing toward compromises with evil forces around the world hostile to freedom. What left is only the faceless members of certain groups, be they defined by race, class, ethnicity, language, heritage, culture…, begging the government(s) for a better, more comfortable material life. Meaning has been cast aside. Sadly it seems I have lost the America I came to admire and live my dream with. Does this great country founded by the likes of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington exist any longer? The rhetoric of the modern day American politicians contrasts sharply with their policy making: Somehow we are not spiritual beings experiencing a material world. We are only material beings having spiritual illusions. We are here only to be saved by our government, by compromising politicians.

China has never been a legitimate country with its communist government.

Failing to understand the nature of a government/regime only dooms any attempt by America to advance the cause of freedom in the world. That is if advancing the cause of freedom is still the purpose of this country at all.

Some people have the illusion that naming the evil by its name will harm American interest around the world, for that will shut the door for conversation with the evil government(s). But naming the evil by its name was exactly what President Ronald Reagan did toward USSR. And by doing so not only did he open the door for concessions by the enemy, he helped the world understand the principle and the purpose of this great country, thus he put America at a moral high ground to engage its enemy. The result was an American triumph, was victory of freedom over tyranny. I am very disappointed today in America there is a lack of morally clear politicians to articulate the purpose of this country. In blindly pursuing material gain and economic advancement, somehow China has become the model for America, not the opposite. Time and again I read columns by some writers from the left wing, espousing what China is and represents – a morally nihilistic, oppressive regime gaining power by not only plundering the world of its material resources, but eliminating its moral compass. Nowadays, somehow China, a country in deep moral and spiritual crisis on the verge of collapse both economically and politically, becomes an acceptable form of government - “kinder and gentler” despotism in the eyes of America. Who is having an illusion?

The issue of China’s government’s illegitimacy, both morally and politically, has never been adequately addressed by both parties in American politics today. Yet the so-called intellectuals from left to right take a cowardly position, constantly calling for the world to accommodate a regime that has killed and murdered more than 70 million of its citizens since it took power 60 years ago. China’s history book is only a tool by the communist regime to distort history and brainwash its own citizens, handicapping them into some kind of moral and spiritual zombies without souls. Many Chinese students who come to America to study have yet to learn that Korea War was started by the communist North invading the South. And still many students today in China have yet to learn Tiananmen Massacre indeed happened.

China is a major source of instability in the world. A new cold war has already begun.

Americans in recent years have exhibited an appalling moral confusion toward China. Besides a “moral affirmative action” toward China, tolerating a “yellow communism” instead of the “white communism” by USSR, there is an illusion that free trade is morally one way – for the US to change China toward the direction of freedom. Americans fail to understand the open trade also opens the door for China’s moral AIDS to invade America, as illustrated by American businesses being corrupted by China’s party-state and its nihilistic culture. Google is only one such case, among many, that Americans have compromised their moral principles for a few bucks. And this invasion of souls have also infected many American politicians, making them virtual spokespeople or advocates for despotism in American political arena.

Since China joined the WTO, and not without America’s help, a new form of cold war with not missiles but a more potent, more dangerous, highly contagious and more deadly mutation of spiritual/moral AIDS has quietly and stealthily entered the world, as the orgasmic Beijing Olympic opening ceremony manifested. The virus has quickly spread around the globe in a form of short-cut economic ecstasy. The perversion of moral nihilism has already deeply penetrated America, eroding its principles and purpose by providing it with a fantasy culminated by multiple orgasms.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government, sensing its success in numbing the world of its senses, in blinding it from impending catastrophe, has started its own insidious brainwash program world-wide. It has established more than 1,000 Confucian Institutes in many countries to spread its own version of despotic philosophy. It sends out its eunuch artists like Zhang Yimo to stage operas like “The Qin Emperor” and design the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. It controls all the overseas Chinese student associations on various campuses in the West and sends them out like attack dogs for its agendas. Jack Cafferty of CNN was only one among many such victims of the rampant Chinese nationalistic fervor around the globe. It provides all the Chinese language schools overseas with political propaganda materials. It utilizes overseas Chinese businesses, by intimidation and bribe, to stage intelligence gathering in the West. It manipulates Chinese businesses overseas to corrupt and sabotage Western especially American political process. It trains computer hackers to interrupt/destroy American economic and military operations. The list goes on.

Globally, the Chinese government secretively funds the terrorist organization, selling them weapons to combat American troops, to distract America from facing the true evil behind. It supports all despotic regimes in the world, from Venezuela to Sudan to Zimbabwe, from North Korea to Burma to Iran to Cuba, with despotic philosophies such as Maoism, and the Chinese mode of economic development – a form of bureaucratic mercantilism, with weapons and technologies to combat the forces of freedom. It plunders all the natural resources and destroys not just its own environment but pollutes the world. It combines forces of tyranny from the former USSR to offset American agendas of peace and development, of advancing liberty and justice in the world.

Domestically, China’s tyrannical government continues to suppress all dissent, from religious group like Falungong, to underground Christians, to Tibetans, to democratic reformers. It continues to silence all voices f conscience. It continues to maintain one party rule and brainwash the population to accept it as some kind of legitimate form of governance with unique Chinese characters, as against values of democracy and freedom. It continues to ban all type of free speech and strictly controls the internet with its thousands of internet police and millions of 50 cents amateur internet political counselors.

America must wake up from its own moral stupor and face its responsibility.

With the upcoming Clinton trip to China, America must wake up to its moral responsibilities and its founding principles. American must face up to the issue of China’s illegitimate despotic its global agenda to combat forced of freedom championed by America. America must stop talking about “cooperation”, “collaboration”, or “strategic partners” with a government viewed by its own people as illegitimate and evil. America must avoid the failure to appreciate the fragile nature of despotism and tyranny, as in the case that at the eve of the collapse of USSR, America was not prepared, assuming it was stronger than ever. American conservative and liberal wings must review their respective policies toward China, realizing the despotic and illegitimate nature of the government with which they are dealing, realizing the collapse of the communist dynasty is only numbered by years, not decades. America must hold up its founding principles of individual freedom, not being distracted by only the economic interests and security issues. “Those who want to give up freedom for security deserve neither freedom, nor security”. America must resist the temptation of shedding its own moral responsibilities, of compromising its founding principles, even at risk of joining the enemy’s camp. America must win the new cold war by China to corrode its own moral values.

America must stand up in a world gradually sinking into a nihilistic blackhole. “A shining city on the hill with its beacon to light the path toward freedom for mankind”, I only hope there will be more Ronald Reagan types with their moral clarity, with their simple but profound common sense. I only hope American people will wake up as responsible free beings to bear the torch of freedom in search of meaning of existence that makes life worth living.

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Kai Chen is a free lance writer and author of “One in a Billion – Journey toward Freedom”

You can contact Kai Chen: www.kaichenforum.com . or www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com
Email: elecshadow@aol.com

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A to-do list for Clinton's China trip

The secretary of State should push for Beijing's help on the economy, nuclear proliferation, climate change and pandemic disease.

By Nina Hachigian
February 10, 2009

The debate about whether to engage China is over -- we are now about 20 years into a common-law marriage. The debate about whether China will join the international community is also over. Beijing has been signing up for multilateral forums as if they were going out of style. The great challenge for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton when she visits Beijing next week is to influence China to play a larger role in preventing global catastrophes in these areas: the economy, nuclear proliferation, climate change and pandemic disease.

China deserves high marks for acting quickly on the global economic crisis. Beijing turned on a dime from trying to cool down its economy last summer to enacting potentially potent stimulus measures over the last months. Some measures, such as a plan to invest $123 billion in universal health insurance over the next three years, could lay the foundation for a social safety net that will help establish a broad Chinese middle class, which would support the growth of the American middle class by fostering a robust market for U.S. exports. Moreover, working with the International Monetary Fund, Beijing is helping to bail out Pakistan, whose economic stability the United States is concerned about, to put it mildly.
The politically challenging issues of currency, intellectual property protection and the potential "Buy American" provisions of the U.S. economic stimulus package remain and could get worse, but they have proved manageable through regular consultation with Congress and steady dialogue with Beijing.

On efforts to prevent potential nuclear catastrophes, China's record is mixed. Beijing is playing an invaluable leadership role in hosting the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program and has been instrumental in breaking specific logjams. But Beijing still cares much more about stability on the Korean peninsula than it does about North Korea's nukes (which are not aimed at China, after all). Whether and under what conditions Pyongyang would give up its weapons, and how much arm-twisting China would be willing to do, are unclear. Clinton is sure to make a strong pitch for more Chinese pressure, but here Beijing and Washington have at least agreed on a path forward.

In contrast, on nuclear catastrophe scenario No. 2 -- Iran's program -- China and the U.S. sharply diverge. China has repeatedly blocked U.S. efforts in the U.N. Security Council to impose tough sanctions on Tehran. Beijing does not want to see a Middle East made even more dangerous by complicated nuclear dynamics, but China's immediate and pressing lust for energy supplies will leave its anti-proliferation policies compromised at best. Prospects for Clinton to make headway on this issue seem dim.
That brings us to climate change. Global warming will demand the most creative and intense diplomacy the Obama team has to offer. China's energy demand is mind-blowing in scale. From 2001 through 2007, China's consumption increased by an amount equal to energy use in all of Latin America, according to Asia energy expert Mikkal Herberg.

China is firmly opposed to hard targets for reducing its ballooning greenhouse gas emissions, arguing, with reason, that the West caused the global warming crisis and bears the burden of responsibility. But without China on board, the world will not be able to reduce greenhouse gases to the level that scientists think is necessary to avoid catastrophic effects.

You know things are bad when avian flu seems like a bright spot. But there's reason for guarded optimism that China will handle outbreaks responsibly: A Chinese doctor heads the World Health Organization, more money is headed for rural healthcare in China, and Beijing learned from the SARS crisis earlier this decade that the potentially devastating effect of a pandemic is exacerbated when its early cases are covered up.

What tack, then, should Clinton take in her first trip abroad as secretary of State to maximize the chances of progress in preventing these global catastrophes?

First, while making plain our differences (on human rights, China's military buildup, currency, Darfur, Tibet and other issues), she should make clear that China is a strategic partner in crucial areas and that the United States welcomes China's integration into the international system as a responsible, respected and engaged stakeholder.

She also should pave the way for new, bold initiatives based on "strategic collaboration." One potentially fruitful area is clean energy research, with the United States and China, or a group of the major energy consumers, joining forces.

In her confirmation hearing, Clinton indicated that in dealing with other nations she would maintain her focus on the entire relationship and not allow single issues to set the tone and direction. That is the right approach, but that does not prevent her from prioritizing U.S. interests around these four challenges in her talks in Beijing. It is in the nature of our deeply interdependent relationship to have a long list of issues that we want action on from China, but we are likely to see more progress if we can be clear about which are most important.

Negotiating with China is never easy. But neither China nor the United States can prevent these catastrophes alone.

Nina Hachigian is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.